


Loud

by strangerjoyces



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, el and max becoming friends, elmax - Freeform, mentions of abuse, the party has a sleepover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21630247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangerjoyces/pseuds/strangerjoyces
Summary: In an alternate version of the Summer of 1985, Max and El bond over their shared histories of trauma rather than boys.Or, the Party has a sleepover and El and Max step outside for a bit...
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper & Maxine "Max" Mayfield
Kudos: 25





	Loud

THE SUMMER OF 1985

“Lucas, I swear to god, if you don’t cut that shit out right now, I’m going to kill you in your sleep tonight,” Mike screams at Lucas.

Lucas grins, pushing his feet even harder into the back of Mike’s chair. Mike shoots him a poisonous glare.

Will sighs, his eyes meet Max’s and he gives her an exasperated look. “Guys, can you please stop fighting?”

Lucas throws a pillow at Will’s face in reply.

“That’s it,” Will says, with more menace than Max ever thought the boy was capable of. He heaves himself up off the couch and marches over to Lucas, smacking him over the head with the pillow. Mike joins in

Lucas screeches as the other two boys pummel him with pillows, all hurling insults at each other.

Max shakes her head. Boys… This is the first time they’ve ever had a sleepover with all of them together (well, except for Dustin who had been whisked off to some summer camp after discovering, as he had put it, a newfound talent for coding and computer engineering, whatever that meant) and, until now, it had been going relatively successfully. A quick game of D & D, an awkward dinner with the Wheelers, some new horror movie that Mike had promised would be the best thing they’d seen all year… which had ended up with Lucas and her making fun of it whilst Mike got increasingly pissed off.

She loved the boys of course, but they were still teenage boys and god, she could get tired of their antics sometimes. But she and El, despite being the only two girls in the Party, had never been that close. 

It’s not like Max hadn’t tried, but whatever she was doing to try and get El to warm up to her wasn’t working. Max had never been any good at being friends with other girls.

As the fighting continues, she looks over at El, trying to gage if the girl was feeling the same animosity she was. But instead she is greeted with a look of panic and desperation crossed on her face.

She gently nudges El, “Are you okay?”

El shrugs, not saying anything.

She never said much, not to Max anyways.

“It’s just really loud in here… I don’t like it… are they… are they always like this?” El whispers. Max has forgotten that El had never really experienced the full force of 3 teenage boys who have consumed way too much junk food, all losing their shit at once. 

But Max can tell there’s also something else beneath that going on in El’s mind. Max has felt it before too. That pounding in your head, that tight feeling in your chest, that need to escape in any way possible… when it’s all just too loud.

“Do you want to go outside? Get some fresh air?” She asks.

El nods. Max helps her up off the couch and they push past the boys, still yelling at each other, and out the backdoor of Mike’s basement into the backyard.

Once she’s in the fresh air, El calms down a bit. Breathing heavily, she leans against the wall, next to Max.

“Are you feeling better now?” Max asks. 

El nods and smiles at her, “Thanks.”

“I don’t know why we made friends with a bunch of 14-year-old boys, god, they can be such idiots!” Max says.

That makes El laugh. Max feels proud of herself. She’s never made El laugh before.

They sit in silence for a bit, backs against the wall, staring up at the stars dotting the night sky. But it’s not an awkward silence, just a nice kind of quiet. Better than the chaos back inside, at least.

Then El starts to talk. Like, really talk. Max doesn’t remember ever having a proper one-on-one conversation with El before tonight. 

“Sometimes when things are too loud or too much, I get these feelings and I don’t know how to explain it. It feels… bad. And I get these…” she trails off.

“Get what?” Max asks.

El sighs, struggling to find the right words, “I get these… memories? Bad memories.”

Max doesn’t want to pry because this is obviously a sore topic for El, but her curiosity has been piqued. “Memories? Memories of what?”

El shifts uncomfortably. “Bad men,” she whispers so quietly, Max can hardly make out what she’s saying.

Max has heard of the “bad men” from the stories Lucas and the other have told her. In her mind, they’re like the bad guys from a cool action movie, complete with car chases and government conspiracies.

She’s never really stopped to think that El knew those men long before she had ever met the Party, or about what they might have done to her. All she really knows about El’s past is that the government experimented on her. But in her mind, El is the hero, the invincible girl with superpowers.

“The bad men from the lab?” Max asks gently. She doesn’t want to press El too much, but it seems like she wants to talk.

El nods.

“Did they… did they hurt you?”

El drops her gaze to the floor. “Sometimes,” she admits, “Actually, a lot. And when I was in the basement, it felt like I was back in the lab. They had a lot of machines and sometimes the bad men would scream at each other. It was so loud.”

That makes Max’s blood boil. She and El aren’t close but the idea that anyone could ever hurt a girl like her makes her want to fight everyone.

But El doesn’t stop there. It’s like she’s bottled up all these feelings inside her and is finally unloading them all on Max. It’s the more words she’s heard the girl say before, than all of their previous interactions combined.

“And sometimes, when I see them all having fun like that… I feel a bit mad,” El says.

Max laughs, “You feel jealous?”

“Yes! Jealous. Sometimes I’m very jealous of you. And the rest of the Party. You guys get to be normal.”

“What do you mean?”

El looks up at Max and her eyes look sadder and wiser than Max has ever seen before. That girl has seen some shit. “The bad men hurt me, but they also… took away my life. Sometimes I feel weird. I don’t know many words. I’ve never been to school. I don’t have a mom and dad. I’m scared that I’ll never be normal. They took everything from me.”

Her voice cracks and there are tears forming at the edge of her eyes now, and Max has no idea what to do. This is far beyond anything she’s experienced and she’s never been any good at comforting others anyways.

Instead, she decides to tell El her own stories, to make her feel less alone in the world. Things she’s never really told the other before. Not even Lucas.

“You know my parents are divorced right?” She asks.

“What is ‘divorced’?” El wonders. 

“Basically, it means my mom and dad aren’t married or live together anymore. Like, you know how Will doesn’t have a dad? That’s because Joyce and his father divorced,” she tries to explain.

El nods, not really understanding, “But I thought you had a dad? We went to your house once.”

“I do, I do still have a dad, but he’s back in California. The man you met was my step-father.”

“Step-father?”

“It means he’s married to my mom. He’s my dad but not actually my dad,” Max says.

“Like me and Hopper?”

Max sighs, “No, not really. It’s… complicated. Anyway, my parents split when I was 7 but before that they used to fight all the time. Sometimes the screaming would get so loud I would just run away, all the way down to the beach, until I learned how to skateboard,” she pauses her rambling, “I guess what I’m trying to say is I know how you feel.”

Max knows her parents divorcing is nowhere near as bad as El being locked up and experimented on by the government, but she doesn’t know how else to help.

“Do you get jealous too?” El asks.

Max scoffs, “Oh yeah, all the time. When I look at Mike and Lucas with their perfect families, and dads who aren’t deadbeat drunks they only see once a year. Even Dustin and Will whose moms actually care about them and don’t disappear for days and leave them alone with their siblings. Not that it would matter because everyone else has siblings who don’t treat them like actual shit,” she looks over at El, “I’m sorry. I’m ranting and making this all about me.” 

El smiles softly, “No. I like it. It makes me feel… less alone. And less jealous.”

“You shouldn’t feel alone. Trust me, most people have gone through some shit. And you made friends with the weirdest kids in town so you definitely don’t have to feel alone in not being normal.”

El laughs. She looks over at Max. “Have you… have you ever been hurt?”

Max pauses. She’s never admitted this to anyone, never spoken a word about it. But El is so desperate to have someone like her, someone to relate with, that she can’t help it.

“Yeah… I guess. You know my step-brother Billy? He’s a major asshole. When we were younger he used to be out of control. He would break my toys, lock me in closets, shove me into the wall. One time he broke my best friend’s arm. But it’s fine, he’s been better lately,” she adds quickly at the end.

El is quiet for a bit, “One time my Papa refused to feed me for 3 days until I said I would spy for him.”

“One time my step-dad beat up my brother and then slapped me when I tried to help him,” Max adds.

“One time Papa held me down while these men poked sticks into my head to try and see where my powers came from in my brain.”

“Okay, you win,” Max says. El laughs.

“Did they ever figure out where the powers came from?” Max asks.

“No. They weren’t even good at their jobs,” El replies. 

Max laughs, “We’re a fucked up pair, aren’t we?”

“I like it. I like knowing there are other people… like me. Sometimes it’s so scary and all the memories and everything… it makes me feel so bad,” El replies.

“I like it too,” Max says, the realisation dawning on her. She’s never spoken about this before. The only person she’d met who could ever relate was Billy and well… he wasn’t much help. 

“It’s not very nice,” El says, looking thoughtful.

“What’s not nice?” Max asks.

“The world. People aren’t very nice,” El continues. That sets off alarm bells in Max’s head. She’s been down that road, not trusting people, thinking everyone was bad and everyone was going to hurt her. Better to never let anyone get close than to let someone in only to get hurt.

“El, listen to me. That’s not true. There are so many good, nice people in the world. Don’t let the bad men ruin it for you or you’ll let them win. Think about it, Hopper, Mike, all your friends. There are so many people who love you.”

“You?” El asks.

Max grins. Could the El Hopper finally be acknowledging that they were friends? “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

“Thank you,” El says, “This was nice.”

“I- I’ve never told any of this to anyone before,” Max admits. “So, thank you too.”

El smiles, “I like that we’re friends now.” 

“Me too,” Max says, trying to act cool. But inside, she’s screaming in excitement. This is the moment she’s been waiting for, for months. Ever since she heard all those stories about the little girl with superpowers.

They make a silent agreement to head back inside. Max holds the basement door open for El.

Inside, the boys have settled down. There are pillows strewn everywhere but Lucas, Mike and Will are sitting on the couch, playing a game of cards and acting like nothing happened.

“Where have you guys been?” Mike asks.

Max shrugs, “Girl chat.”

El smiles, “Yeah. Girl chat,” she says, imitating Max.

Lucas pulls a face. “Ewww, like periods and clothes and all that shit?” Next to him, Will looks mortified.

Max and El’s eyes meet and they exchange a look. One of a newfound understanding of each other. They’re more alike than either of them would have admitted before tonight. More than just being the 2 girls.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to say that,” Will says quietly.

El looks confused. “Wait, what’s a period?”

The Party erupts into laughter. 

Max tries to stop herself from giggling, “That my friend, is a talk for another day.”


End file.
